


The Beginning of the End

by BlueClue182



Series: Tumblr Fluff [4]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky is really uncomfortable, Coming to terms with our feelings, Couch Cuddles, Erection, Fluff, M/M, Pebbles makes an appearance, Sexuality, Snuggling, Spooning, Steve is cavalier about homosexuality, aren't we Buck, gay dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueClue182/pseuds/BlueClue182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is alone waiting for Steve to come home and has a dream about his bestie. Steve finally comes home and flops on top of Bucky in an unfortunate state. Conversations are had. Pebbles is there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts From THIS POST: http://permets-tu.tumblr.com/post/95138397281/josephjtoye-you-could-be-sad-about-your-otp-but  
> This one took me FOREVER to write. Feelings are hard to write about. Like the others, this one has not been beta'ed but I'd be happy to take suggestions/recommendations.

Bucky was stretched out on the couch with only one small lamp for light. It was a hot summer evening and Steve was still at work, doing inventory as he had to every month. Bucky had the radio on, and he had considered going out dancing but decided instead to wait for Steve to get home. He was tired from a week’s worth of hard work and general debauchery. He laid his head back and allowed the music that lazily emitted from the radio to wash over his weary bones.  
He peeked at the clock, although he’d been resisting doing so for—five whole minutes, apparently.  
8:05. Steve usually didn’t get home until closer to 9 or sometimes even 10 on inventory nights and knowing he’d have to wait at LEAST an hour for some company made Bucky cranky. He rolled over, away from the clock on the wall, and sighed. Pebbles jumped up on the couch arm, and mewed quietly for attention.  
“Hey Buddy. D’you like the music?” He reached out towards the cat, who had grown almost three times the tiny size he was when Bucky had found him a year ago, and Pebbles hopped right on to his leg. Bucky scratched his head as he had done since the day he brought him home. “Me too.” Pebbles curled up between Bucky’s stomach and the back of the couch, which he had also been doing since kitten-hood, and purred so that it reverberated through Bucky’s ribcage. Bucky laid like that, stroking Pebbles from head to tail until the warmth of the night, combined with the music and the company of his cat lulled him into a dream about golden corn fields and fresh air.  
In the dream, Bucky and Steve were sprawled out on the ground in front of a farmhouse, playing cards together. They were shaded by a huge oak tree that grew just to the left of the house. There was a swing made from thick rope and scrap wood hanging from the tree, and it creaked softly as the wind passed through the leaves. Everything around him was a watercolor—everything except Steve. Steve was tangible, outlined in thick black lines and colored in high-saturation primaries. More than that, he looked healthy. Bucky wasn’t worried about him coughing up a lung from hay fever. He knew somehow that there was no threat of an asthma attack, that his limp was completely gone, that he could hear just fine out of both ears thank you very much.  
They finished up their game and Steve brought out his sketchbook and a palate of paints in colors Bucky didn’t even know existed. He began to furiously draw and paint somehow all at the same time and the entire landscape around them was captured on the sketchpad. Steve took the blobs of color and fixed them so that they were the farmhouse, the tree with the swing, even Bucky himself. Somehow the painting was more like reality than what was around them.  
“Bucky.” Steve whispered. “You look so beautiful while you sleep.”  
“I’m not asleep, Steve, I’m right here with you.” Steve smiled up from under his too-long bangs.  
“Course you’re asleep. This is your dream. But you look beautiful awake, too.”  
“You’re a punk, you know that? You can’t juss go around sayin’ things like that to me.”  
“Sure I can. How else would you know I love you?” And in the dream, that made sense. Bucky felt the same way, and he could tell Steve, out loud, and they could tell everyone if they wanted. Bucky leaned in and held Steve’s jaw in his hand, reached around to the back of his neck, and—  
“OOF” The warm sun was suddenly gone. The fresh air and wildflower scents were replaced with whatever the old woman down the hall was cooking and the constant mildew smell that the couch gave off. Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve three inches from his face. “Whoa what?”  
“Hello to you too.”  
“Jesus Steve. Give me a heart attack why donchya?”  
“Sorry. I couldn’t tell if you were asleep or dead.” Steve was like dead weight atop Bucky, who was trying to make sure the uncomfortable bulge in his pants stayed sufficiently hidden. “Loooooong day at the store.” Steve groaned as he stretched out, not unlike Pebbles as he did so.  
“Doesn’t mean you can jus’ flop wherever you want.” Bucky tried readjusting underneath Steve, but anywhere he moved would just make matters worse. “It’s hot out. Don’t know if you noticed.”  
“You’re grumpy for a guy on his day off.”  
“I was takin’ a nap.”  
“Right. Forgot you’re miserable when you wake up.”  
“Shove off.” But instead of letting up, Steve snuggled in to Bucky, readjusting to a more comfortable position. Bucky heard two thuds—Steve’s shoes hitting the ground one after the other—and buried his face in a pillow.  
“I think we might need a new couch, Buck. This one is getting lumpy. And whiny.” Steve poked Bucky in the ribs.  
“Aw c’mon Steve. Why you gotta be such a punk?”  
“Mostly cuz you’re such a jerk.”  
Bucky tried to ignore just how happy the snuggling made him feel. He tried instead to focus on anything else—Pebbles needed feeding or he should do some laundry or maybe he could run down to the store and get some more milk. At-----near midnight on a Saturday. Maybe he would just wait for the store to open Monday morning. It would be safer out there in the dark. It would be safer on the streets of New York in a darkened alleyway unconscious than here, underneath his best friend, trying to hide the growing problem in his pants.  
“Steve, for once can you just listen and get off me?”  
“You know, I’d love to Bucky, but you’re so uncomfortable like this.”  
“Seriously, Steve. Get off.” Bucky sat up straight and Steve rolled off onto the floor.  
“Bucky.”  
“I asked nice.”  
“But…you never had that much of a problem with me layin’ on ya before.”  
Bucky sighed. Decision time. “I…” Steve was looking at him so earnestly. They didn’t have secrets between them. Why should they start now? “I had a dream where you and I…we were talkin’ sweet.” Steve’s facial expression didn’t change.  
“So?”  
“So it…made me feel real nice.”  
“Okay.”  
“Real nice.” Bucky gestured to his crotch.  
“Oh.” Steve rubbed his neck. “Okay.” He met Bucky’s eyes.  
“What just like that just okay?”  
“I don’t know what else I should say, Buck. You had a dream, and you got a woody in your sleep. It happens.”  
“Yeah but the dream was you an’ me.”  
“So what? I have dreams like that sometimes.”  
“You do?”  
“Yeah, Buck. You’re my best friend, we spend almost all our time together when we aren’t at work…makes sense we’d spend it together in our dreams, too.”  
“But—“  
“Bucky, I’m gonna be frank with ya. I wake up from the dreams the same way, okay? I have for a while—since we were kids. And I gave up worryin’ about it long ago. If it bothers you, then let it bother you. But it don’t bother me none.”  
Bucky couldn’t do anything but blink. Once. Twice. Silence between them. Another blink. Thankfully, Steve didn’t seem to have anything else to say. Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it again. Steve leaned back on his heels. “Can I come sit back on the couch please?” All the words Bucky could have said were caught in his throat. His mouth was dry, his hands clammy. Another blink. Steve stood up slowly, and reached over to pick up Pebbles, who meowed in protest of being moved away from Bucky’s warmth. “If you’re uncomfortable, just tell me.” Steve smiled with just one corner of his mouth. He nudged Bucky to move over a little, and he obliged. Bucky rolled so his back was tight against the back of the couch, and Steve laid down in front of him.  
“Steve.”  
“Shhhhh.” Steve reached back and pulled Bucky’s arm around his middle. Bucky shifted awkwardly. “It’s fine, Buck.” Steve wriggled closer. “Really.” Bucky inhaled deeply. Steve smelled like cotton and sweat and cloves and cinnamon. “Sleepy.” Steve mumbled.  
“I hate you a little. You know that, right?” Bucky whispered. Steve responded with a snort.  
“Okay.” The music from the radio floated over their heads as they fell asleep spooning.


End file.
